


Spiralling Out

by kuiiper



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: He/Him Pronouns for Michael | The Distortion (The Magnus Archives) in Later Chapters, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, It/Its Pronouns For Michael | The Distortion (The Magnus Archives), M/M, Michael | The Distortion (The Magnus Archives) Redemption Arc, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:27:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26720614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuiiper/pseuds/kuiiper
Summary: Michael stared down at its hands, brown eyes somber. Its hair was matted and tangled and bloodstained. The scars at each corner of his lips accentuated its frown.“You could have let me die,” it said. “Why didn’t you?”
Relationships: Michael | The Distortion/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 11
Kudos: 77





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings (which will include self-harm and vomiting in later chapters) will be here. Please avoid them if they make you uncomfortable!  
> Loosely based off of TheCozyCryptid's fantastic art, which you can see at https://thecozycryptid.tumblr.com/post/614955783964196864/here-it-is-folks-the-intro-to-my-take-on-a .

Michael’s breathing, if the rise and fall of its chest could even be called that, grew faster as its fingers wrapped around the brass doorknob. “Th-Tha-That-That’s… not –” it stuttered out, growing more frantic with each passing second. It twisted it sharply, let its eerily pointed fingertips brush the surface for any lock it would have somehow not known about. It jostled the doorknob roughly. Panicking. 

Jon watched Michael fumble with the doorknob and nervously cast a glance behind him. He could hear the circus, distant, searching. What a twisted thing, he thought, to _want_ (in a sense) to enter the Spiral’s corridors and not be able to. He was sure Michael would have laughed, had it not been so caught up in trying to yank the damn door off its hinges.

The sound of a rattling door and scraping of wood paled to the loud, aching silence as soon as Michael stopped. It stopped suddenly. “Oh,” it said slowly. It’s face was contorted into an expression that Jon had never seen on it before. 

Fear. A dawning realization.

“Oh no,” Michael said, thin eyebrows knitting together. Its bright blue-swirled-pink eyes were wide, unprocessing. It’s voice was suddenly much less singsong, much more monotone. “Oh no, oh no.”

It turned to look at Jon. Its face was pale and afraid and it stared at him like he had any answers. And then it screamed.

The screams were dreadful sounds and Jon’s hands flew to his ears to try and mute them down. Michael was being systematically torn apart, absorbed back into the door. It disintegrated into spiraling ribbons that whipped around like there was wind manipulating them. And then, in a flash, Michael was gone. The screams warbled away, distorted, glitching.

The yellow door opened.

“Do you want to come in?” 

* * *

It took no small amount of convincing on Jon’s part to have Helen spare Michael, let him take it somewhere else. She looked at him with raised eyebrows. 

“What do you want from it?” She asked, folding her long, long fingers beneath her chin. She sat in a chair that hadn’t been there before, crossed one leg over the other. “It’s empty. All influence from the Spiral has been sucked out of it, it’s an empty vessel now.” 

Jon took a deep breath. “It was once Michael Shelly,” he said, “and I hope that, er, with the Spiral gone from it, he might… return.”

“Though they are the same unit, your Michael Shelly is long gone. Only your tormentor remains, you know. There’s nothing of Shelly left.”

“There may still be- _some_ layer of separation between them. I can’t let the knowledge Mr. Shelly must have had go to waste.”

“So it’s about knowledge, then? Not empathy?” 

Tersely, Jon nodded. It was the truth, after all. Helen tipped her head to one side and then the other, sizing up her human companion. 

“Its vessel has already been… relieved of many of its… components. Namely blood, but its powers and, ostensibly, any affiliation with the Spiral have been completely revoked. ” 

“Can it be saved- er, salvaged?”

Helen’s lips quirked upwards into a smile. She stood and the chair beneath her disappeared. “I suppose that’s up to you to find out. If you get bored of it, do feel free to dispose of it yourself. How cruel of you to do this to it: it had one purpose, was created for one purpose alone, and that was to serve the Spiral, and now it won’t even have the capacity for that even if it does recover. I approve.” And then, she reached into the portrait closest to her- a nonsensical painting of scribbles in blue and pink. Her hand disappeared into it and from it pulled out what could best be described as a corpse by the lapels of its neon coat. She dropped it unceremoniously at Jon’s feet. “I’ll see you out- make sure it doesn’t try anything. Would you rather I return you to your home or the Institute?”

“Home,” Jon said quickly, “I want you to bring me to my home.”

The body next to Jon was barely identifiable as Michael. Its blond locks were caked with rust-colored blood and its body was covered in lacerations and scars, like it had at one point been forced entirely apart and was then haphazardly stitched back together. Jon would have believed it to be dead completely if not for the agonized, rattling breaths it drew in every few seconds. It was no longer quite so… monstrous. Still quite tall and lanky but no longer unsettlingly so, and its features were soft now. _Human_.

Jon gathered the body of Michael Shelly in his arms, struggling under its weight and the long limbs that dragged against the ground. One of Michael’s hands weakly tensed into a fist, then again fell limp. Its breaths were ragged in Jon’s ear when he shifted to have it slung over his back. When it had been an avatar of the Spiral, it was unlikely it would have had to breathe, and now, it was the only thing that it _could_ do.

Helen gave Jon a dubious look that morphed into one of distaste as her gaze fell on Michael. “I’m surprised you can stand to touch it. Aren’t you worried it’ll spring to life again and kill you?”

Jon was silent. 

Helen pursed her lips. “Hm,” she hummed, and said nothing else until she gestured to an empty picture frame hung neatly on an eye-bleedingly yellow wall. “It’s your stop. Perhaps Michael’s, too.”

Struggling to carry Michael who was by all accounts far bigger than himself, Jon grunted in affirmation. Blood dripped from it onto him and he shuddered as he began shoving it feet-first into the portrait. “I- appreciate your help,” he panted. 

“Mm, you’re very welcome,” Helen responded. Jon hadn’t noticed her step up behind him and she pushed Jon and Michael out of her domain. 

Jon found himself tumbling head-over-heels into his apartment through a yellow door that disappeared as soon as both he and Michael were out of it. He panted from exertion and terror but, as had been proven so many times in the past, there was no rest for the wicked. The creature that once was Michael the Distortion lay limp at his feet.

“You deserve this,” Jon told it as he hooked his hands under his arms and started to drag it towards his bed, “I should have left you back there.” 

Jon hauled Michael up onto his bed with no small amount of effort. He spared no moment of mourning for the now bloodstained sheets in favor of scrambling for the medical kit he kept around for emergencies like this that just _kept_ happening. He dug out gauze and bandages and utilized what little medical knowledge he had dabbing away blood and bandaging Michael’s dreadfully bruised and twisted fingers. 

Michael’s eyes flew open when Jon started to wipe away the blood at the corners of its mouth and he froze. Its eyes were a soft amber-brown, wet with tears. They were unseeing, uncomprehending, but they were Michael’s. Jon blinked. His eyes hadn’t been that color before. They’d been swirls of pink and cyan of the most unnatural hue possible like neon signs. 

It whined something unintelligible out before again falling limp, bloodsoaked hair falling over its face. 

* * *

“Archivist,” Michael rasped the next time it awoke. Its voice was soft and sweet, as it always was, but there wasn’t the condescending twinge that had been there before. In its place was a fear, a nervousness. It moved to try and sit up.

Jon didn’t have to push it back into bed for it to quit trying when it became more acquainted with the pain in its chest. It moaned lowly, eyes screwing shut and brow knitting together. It panted with effort and pain. Still, it continued aloud, “A-archivist.”

“I’m right here,” Jon said with an unexpected gentleness that startled him, so he made his voice rougher and harsher. "Save your breath."

Michael only wheezed in response. Jon could see its chest tremble with breath under the thin white sheet that covered it. Its eyes were shut and its mouth slightly ajar. There were still marks on it, Jon noted as he scanned him over, _brands_. Spirals that looked to be long-faded burn scars still painted each of its cheeks. He'd seen earlier on its fingers, too, that they were scarred and bent in strange ways but weren't quite so monstrous as they once had been. This was mere residue from when Michael was, in its own terms, the throat of delusion. 

"Archivist why did-" it said again, softer only in that it was growing weaker.

"Shut up," Jon eloquently responded. Then, with a deep sigh, he added, "I'll answer any questions you have when you're in a fit state to ask them. I have some of my own to ask.

Michael's fingers flexed and it shifted to bring its hands to its chest, but the movement was uncoordinated. Obviously, Jon considered, it was unaccustomed to having such… distinctly human characteristics. Being so mundane. It rested one hand over the other and again fell still.

Jon worked for a little while to make dinner. That was the benefit of such a small apartment, he supposed: he didn’t have to let Michael out of his sight. He made himself unseasoned, unbuttered noodles. He rarely cooked, and in fact he disliked doing so, but he couldn’t introduce Michael to food through fast food or barely-cooked elbow noodles. He had bananas, right? Weren’t bananas healthy? Yes. And soft, easy on the stomach for someone inexperienced with mortality. He snatched the one that looked the ripest- he had a habit of buying green ones from the store so that by the time he got around to eating them they might actually be edible still. 

He pulled up chair to Michael’s bedside. One brown eye cracked open to look up at him. It was untrusting. Uncertain of the reason he wasn’t dead, torn apart by the spiral. Ultimately powerless. 

“Here,” Jon said, shoving the banana into Michael’s general direction and dropping it on his torso, “eat.”

It wasn’t like Jon was a cruel man. Not more so than anyone else, that is- he didn’t necessarily want to hurt Michael, but the curiosity was stifling. He _had_ to know the secrets of a mortal-turned-avatar-turned-mortal-again. He was impatient with it. When Michael merely stared up at him, Jon grew frustrated.

“Eat it,” he said sharply, “Just- just _eat_ it.” He roughly helped Michael to sit up, more pushing him upright than guiding him. He tried to touch him as little as possible. 

Both of Michael’s eyes were open now, fixed on the _thing_ in its lap. It lifted it in two shaking, uncoordinated hands. It looked at Jon. It never had to eat before, not since it was Michael Shelly and the memories of that time were, at best, indecipherable. 

It brought the thing to its mouth and bit down.

Michael recoiled at the taste, nose scrunching and immediately letting the chunk in its mouth fall out onto its lap. It gagged so hard it hurt its throat.

“You… you bit into the peel,” Jon deadpanned, unamused, “is… is this a joke? Are you playing a joke?” 

Michael, who was still busy trying to get that acrid taste out of its mouth, shook its head weakly. It still said nothing. Its arms, suddenly feeling weak again, were let drop onto its lap. 

“You have to peel it. Like a wrapper,” Jon explained like he was dealing with a child, and snatched the banana away. He peeled it quickly, eager for this conversation to be done with, eager to not to have to look at the beast that was once an avatar of the Spiral like it was pitiable. He handed it back to Michael. 

“You’re not meant to eat the outside?” Michael asked, the first thing it had really said to Jon since its arrival. Its voice was gentle and sweet now that it wasn’t so twisted by the Spiral. 

“No.”

Michael made a soft noise of acknowledgement. It examined the banana again and squished a piece between its fingers before bringing them to its lips and licking it off. It was sweet on its tongue, sickeningly so, and it gagged. Even that little bit was too much for it to take. Jon must have seen how its face blanched, so he didn’t demand he finished it. He took it and rested it on the bedside table for it to try again later if it wanted to. 

“...you seem like you’re feeling better,” Jon said, unsure how to engage in small-talk with the creature that had relentlessly tried to kill him for the better part of a handful of months, “are-”

“I feel like I’m on fire,” Michael said blankly, “I felt myself being torn apart on an atomic level. Rearranged. This last time was the worst,” it said, and it flinched at the memory, “There was no mercy there. I can still feel echoes of my body being destroyed on a scale you’re incapable of comprehending.”

“...ah.” Dear god, Jon wished he had some of Martin’s tact. He cleared his throat. “Well, I should, let you rest. We can talk more later.”

Michael stared down at its hands as Jon turned to leave, brown eyes somber. Its hair was matted and tangled and bloodstained. The scars at each corner of his lips accentuated his frown. 

“You could have let me die,” it said. “Why didn’t you?”

Jon blinked, mouth opening and then closing again. He didn’t answer. “Good night, Michael.”


	2. Nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains descriptions of self-harm.

That night, Jon slept on his pathetic little couch. Or at least, he tried to. He curled up on it, a thin wall separating himself and Michael. Here and there throughout the night, he could hear the thing’s breathing go ragged, tense, and he had half a mind to check on it. Make sure it didn’t die. Something in him held him back. He didn’t want to have to look in the eyes that had once belonged to Michael Shelly and now so distinctly didn’t but were still  _ human _ and were so  _ soft _ and  _ warm _ it made him want to let his guard down. 

It wasn’t unusual that Jon spent much of the time he should have used sleeping for considering his situation. He picked at his scars, the holes bored by worms that never quite healed all the way and that he desperately didn’t want to think about it. Michael’s question rung in his mind.

_ I could have let it die, _ he thought,  _ let it die and be done with it. There’s nothing Michael Shelly could tell me that I couldn’t have figured out on my own. _

Jon’s heart was beating too loud and it hurt his ears and made his head start to pound. He could practically feel his blood moving through his veins and he winced. He shouldn’t read too much into it, he told himself. He was just… curious. 

His mind wandered from the introspective side of his decisions to more lighthearted topics. Would Michael die in his care? Obviously, it wasn’t faring well. It could barely lift up something as light as a banana and it could scarcely move on its own. At least, he thought as he shoved his face further into his pillow, he didn’t have to worry too much about it slaughtering him in his sleep. Would he be upset if Michael died? It had certainly gotten better treatment than it deserved, having done what it had to so many people. 

Sleep didn’t come that night. He lay on his stomach on the couch with his arms folded beneath his head since he hadn’t remembered to grab a pillow from his bedroom before letting Michael bleed all over his things. He stared at his eyelids. He ached with exhaustion and finally, finally, he was starting to drift off. 

Until a heavy thud and a resounding series of crashes startled him awake. He pushed himself up onto his arms and rolled off the couch, heart pounding. He took a deep, shuddering breath, horribly startled. Noises like that late at night were never good. 

Jon walked quickly to the door of the bedroom and peeked inside, bracing for whatever he found.

Inside, all the sheets had been kicked off the bed and the bedside table had been knocked over. Michael was on its hands and knees on the ground, head hung. Blood dripped from its face onto the floor. Its breaths were sharp and shallow, chest heaving like it wasn’t drawing in enough oxygen.

“Michael,” Jon said sharply to get its attention and, hopefully, to keep it from destroying his house and staining his floors. 

Michael turned its head. Its face was streaked with blood and tears, claw marks raking the length from its eyes to its chin. It looked like its lips were bloodied too, but Jon couldn’t see any cause of injury there. Maybe it had just bit down. 

“What-” Jon tried to parse out what he was seeing, “What are you trying to do? Get back into bed.” He pointedly kept his distance.

“I can’t,” Michael breathed out, and its voice was calm. It wasn’t a voice that quite matched up with the image of blood pouring down his cheeks like tears. “I’m afraid I can’t move.” It smiled gently with quivering lips and it gagged on the taste of the blood that leaked into its mouth.

Jon stared for a moment longer before resigning himself to asking as he stepped forward. “Your face,” he said, “what happened to your face?”

Michael laughed softly and there was a note of agony to it that it couldn’t keep out of its new, human voice. Its arms trembled beneath it, struggling to keep itself supported. “I had a dream,” it said softly and its eyes went hazy. “And it was…  _ wonderful _ . I could feel it again, you know. Being torn apart. It was like the layers of my flesh were being separated! My eyes popped and I turned to dust and ribbons!” It dissolved into a laughter that Jon couldn’t differentiate from sobbing, but Michael’s tone had been  _ delighted. _

“… you clawed your face then, to… what?”

The sound that came out of the once-avatar was a strange one. A sob, a scream, a laugh. “You can’t understand, my dear archivist! You could never!” It choked on its own breath and started coughing violently before heaving in great, trembling breaths.

Fuck, Jon wished this was something he could get help on. Having Martin here would save his ass. He’d know what to do. But he didn’t have Martin. Just himself and the scary bastard he’d let into his home like a stray. 

“A night terror then,” Jon said as he approached, “not a dream.” The medical kit from before was on the ground beside the tipped-over table and he fished through it to find more gauze. “The best advice I can give you is to calm down.”

A smile stretched across Michael’s thin lips and it shuddered bodily as the expression tugged at its scars and fresh scratches. “I am quite calm, archivist. I am calm.” 

Jon frowned. “I’m going to help you back onto the bed.” He took both of Michael’s hands and started to tug it up before it howled in agony and he couldn’t bring himself to keep pulling. “I- if you want to be somewhere more comfortable than the floor you need to help me out here,” he hissed. 

“I told you I can’t move,” Michael murmured, eyes glassy.

He wasn’t sure why he was surprised that Michael was no help. He didn’t want to get closer to him to help it up in a different way, but he couldn’t just let it… rot on the floor. He stooped down beside it, nose wrinkling at the thick stench of blood, and lifted. 

Michael moaned in pain again, but Jon managed with a grunt to lift it enough that he could then more or less shove it back atop the mattress. It lay panting there, face still bleeding. Jon sat beside it.

Jon was gentle when he touched Michael’s cheeks to soak up the blood there. He was careful of the scratches. Michael stared up at him with a sort of resigned, tired curiosity. Its eyes were unfocused, but it couldn’t have been looking at anything but Jon. 

“I don’t get it,” it said.

Jon made a point not to look it in the eyes. “Neither do I.” 

When Michael winced at too rough of a swipe, Jon’s hands became gentle and more cautious in a way Michael couldn’t remember feeling. Maybe it was the little bit of Michael Shelly that remained a part of it, but he suddenly ached to have human touch again. When Jon pulled away to pull out bandaids, it whined but was met with no response. 

“You can’t scratch yourself because of a nightmare,” Jon said, smearing antibiotic over the cuts, “You lost enough blood as it is.” Michael was cripplingly pale from the amount of blood it had lost over the course of the day. 

“You’ve done it,” it said, gaze wandering up Jon’s forearms. His sleeves were up to his wrist, so no scars there were visible, but Michael knew better. “I’ve watched you.”

“Not anymore. I’m past it,” Jon responded quickly, “now quiet.”

Michael was blessedly silent for the rest of the time it took to have its injuries treated, and it basked under the attention it was being given. It only opened its mouth again when Jon finished up and was ready to leave again.

“Stay?” It asked. Its voice contained a soft note of hope.

Jon shook his head. “Try to sleep.”

Michael pushed itself up onto its elbows with a moan. It didn’t want to wake up in a strange place without anyone it knew and with that awful, horrendous burning of the memory of being taken apart and put back together again. Not alone. “I’ll tell you what I remember,” it said quickly, “about anything you want. You can record it. Please stay.” 

Jon breathed out a sharp sigh. He wouldn’t be getting any more sleep tonight, anyway. And Michael was staring at him desperately. He didn’t have the energy to question why it wanted him to remain there, but the question was at the back of his mind as he sat down in the chair by the bed. Michael looked relieved as it settled back down. 

“We’ll speak tomorrow before I head off to the Institute. You’re not in a condition to be able to give me proper answers yet.” 

“Do you plan to tell anyone? That I’m with you?”

“...at the moment, I don’t intend to. Maybe it’s foolish of me.”

Michael giggled softly and its eyes fell closed again. “It is very foolish of you. But appreciated.” 

A few moments after they stopped talking, Michael fell quiet and its breaths evened out, asleep. Jon crossed one leg over the other and tried not to think about what he was doing with an ex-avatar in his home. As he calmed, the stench of blood and filth became much more apparent. He eyed the now-dried blood on the floor and the sheets. It was all over Michael, too- he’d have to coax it into the bath to at least wash its hair so it didn’t smell as terribly. 

It was strange, Jon thought as he looked over Michael. Though bandaged, it looked like a painting. Pale and smooth skin and soft features that made it look more cherubic than monstrous. Its hair framed its face, made it look rounder, sweeter. Jon almost wanted to reach out and touch, to run his fingers along its porcelain skin. It looked fragile, delicate. 

Instead, he folded his hands in his lap and simply watched the chest of the beast that nearly killed him slowly rise and fall. 

He didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep like that, slumped in his chair and head leaned against the wall, until he woke up. Jon opened his eyes to see Michael staring right at him and he jumped out of his seat, heart pounding. Michael barely dodged out of the way.

“Don’t- don’t  _ do _ that,” Jon demanded, brushing himself off and pushing his glasses back up on his nose. “Are you- why are you standing?”

Michael was standing upright, out of bed and with a blanket draped around its thin shoulders. It was still abnormally tall and it towered over Jon. It would have been intimidating, if not for the way its legs shook beneath it. A gentle breeze would be enough to knock it over. 

“I was worried,” Michael explained like Jon was the one not making sense, “humans look like corpses when they rest. You’re no exception. You really did look quite dead.” 

Jon’s expression was by no means one of amusement. “So you stood up and… got an inch away from my face?”

Michael nodded vigorously. “I didn’t want to startle you in case you were just sleeping.”

“Wasn’t it your goal to… kill me? Would it have mattered to you?”

“It was my goal, yes. But it would have been quite rude.” 

“Was?”

Michael hummed softly and turned its head. “I’m not certain.” 

“In any case, I suppose… well. You ought to lie down.”

The creature smiled like it was attempting to come off as unsettling, but with its round cheeks and soft eyes, it just felt warm and sweet. “I’ve been lying down far too long.” 

“Sit, then.”

“Idle hands are the devil’s tools, you know.”

“Hm. A monster quoting scripture…”

“Am I really a monster anymore, archivist? I had that torn from me. Violently.” 

“Yes. If you showed any remorse for what you’d done, then… maybe not. But you haven’t.”

Michael’s knees buckled and it caught itself on the bed. It shot Jon an accusing look, like he’d pushed it somehow when it wasn’t looking. It managed to hoist itself back onto the mattress but it remained sitting and it kept the blanket wrapped around itself. “Earn it, then. You’re still an archivist. You still work with the institute. You are, for the lack of a better term, an accomplice to Michael Shelly’s murder.” 

“I’m not and you know it. I was unaware of what she’d done until… until you told me.”

That smile grew wider and wider and it must have hurt terribly with how it pulled at the cuts on its face. “Oh, yes, but she made me Michael and that- that crime is a horrendous one! Being Michael stole the only purpose I have ever known!” It was grinning and grinning and  _ grinning _ but there was a seething note of fury in Michael’s otherwise sweet, soft voice. It was growing irritated in a way that Jon hadn’t seen it before. “I had a place in this universe and now I have  _ nothing _ ,” it said. 

Jon didn’t know how to respond, so he didn’t, even as Michael struggled to its feet again. The blanket fell from around its shoulders and pooled on the ground at its feet. It stepped over it and suddenly it had Jon cornered, but he was too baffled to be afraid. 

“I don’t want to  _ be _ Michael,” it hissed, “I am not Michael, I never have been, and I never will be. Being Michael killed me, do you understand that, archivist? I am  _ nothing _ and have been nothing since Gertrude Robinson pushed that  _ buffoon _ into the Distortion!” It was laughing now, the sound sharp and agonizing. If the way it clutched at its stomach was any indication, it even hurt. “I was a part of something- I was  _ delusion _ ! I was madness in its purest form! And now I am not Michael nor am I a part of the Spiral any longer!” 

The human blinked. He’d expected less of an identity crisis from Michael, at least, not so soon. He opened his mouth, but he was interrupted by a shrill voice broken apart by hysterical laughter. “You’ve condemned me to this! A life that I would rather die than have!” It brought its hands up and started desperately scratching at its cheeks, nails not sharp enough to cut cleanly into its flesh, so it kept scratching and scratching, trying desperately to draw blood.

Jon had never had the best reflexes, but he was gripping either of Michael’s wrists in an instant and tugging them away from its face. His own expression was stern and unsympathetic. His eyes were soft. “Stop,” he said, “you’ll open your wounds again.”

Michael stopped struggling so roughly and it took great, heaving breaths to try and reign itself back in. Its skin was cold and where Jon touched it, it was warm. It shivered and its shoulders fell. “Archivist,” it said softly, “I don’t want to be this.” 

“...I know. I’m sorry.” Jon guided its hands back down to its sides and then he helped guide it back to the bed. “Rest. You’ll feel better.” He stooped down and lifted the blanket from the ground and shook it lightly to clear it of any dust it had accumulated there. He tucked it around Michael’s shoulders. It wouldn’t so much as look at him. 

Jon knew immediately that he couldn’t leave it alone, not like this anyway. He didn’t want to come home to a corpse, even if it was Michael’s. His work at the Institute couldn’t wait, it was his entire livelihood, his  _ purpose _ . He wouldn’t take time off to babysit an ex-avatar with an identity crisis. 

He left the room for just a moment to grab his phone. He dialed a set of numbers into it and leaned against the wall., watching Michael stare vacantly at the floor, unmoving. 

“Hi? Jon?” came Martin’s voice from the other side of the line. 

“Martin. Hello, I- I need… extra accommodations. For when I arrive at the Institute this morning.

“Accomodations?”

“I’m bringing a guest. Please have the cot set up somewhere where it can be accessed easily. Please inform everyone that I will be bringing Michael. It is no longer a servant of the Spiral. I need to keep an eye on it.”

“Jon?” Martin asked.

“Yes?”

“What the fuck?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please consider commenting if you enjoyed! Even just a "nice" will absolutely make my day!


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